Wikipedia talk:Find-A-Grave famous people

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My email from the founder of Find-A-Grave about posting the list on Wikipedia and getting copied to mirror sites:

Go for it...I'm not worried about it, anymore...The whole point of the web is to get as much organized info out there as possible...Use it as you see fit...
Thanks and best of luck with the project!
-Jim Tipton
Find A Grave
http://www.findagrave.com

— BRIAN0918 • 2005-10-18 01:06

Contents

[edit] Incomplete

I looked up the first name that came to mind - George Jay Gould I - who is certainly "notable" and all, having been the owner of an almost-transcontinental system of railroads, and he's not on the list. (Pittsburgh and West Virginia Railway actually has a lot more about the railroads than his article at the moment.) His father Jay Gould is on the list, but that wouldn't automatically make George "notable". --SPUI (talk) 05:22, 25 October 2005 (UTC)

  • Actually, he is on Find-A-Grave, and he is marked as famous. Either the list he gave me was a little old, or there's just some database problem. Just send an email to infoATfindagraveDOTcom. — BRIAN0918 • 2005-10-25 19:00
    • He's there, but he doesn't have one of the "famous" stars. --SPUI (talk) 02:44, 26 October 2005 (UTC)
      • Oh, alright. Just email them and tell them he's famous, and they'll add him to the list. — BRIAN0918 • 2005-10-26 02:56
        • The best way to get someone marked 'famous'is to put them on the list in the Find A Grave Forums. Doc 02:43, 29 October 2005 (UTC)

[edit] Confused

The instructions read, in part:

1)Do not delete any names from this list, even if they're blue links.
2)Only delete blue links if you've verified that the person linked is the same person on Find-A-Grave's site.

Doesn't sentence 2 contradict sentence 1 (or vice versa)?

--Calton | Talk 05:28, 25 October 2005 (UTC)

  • Don't delete blue links unless you've verified that they go to the correct person. — BRIAN0918 • 2005-10-25 05:36

Would it not be a good idea to say that it should also have the External Link added prior to removing it from the list Doc 03:09, 29 October 2005 (UTC)

I've been somewhat confused by these instructions, so have just added explanatory notes next to names - X is really Y, or we don't have an article on them but look at page Z where they're mentioned - and left them on the page for someone more comfortable to remove when they get to the list. Shimgray | talk | 14:03, 1 November 2005 (UTC)

[edit] Activity

For those who don't have all the pages and subpages of this project in their watchlist, I just wanted to let you know that there has been a substantial flurry of activity throughout all the pages recently. Every little bit helps toward the final goal. — BRIAN0918 • 2005-10-27 21:01

[edit] Split pages

Brian, it's looking great so far but could the split pages be added to the top project page? It adds an additional layer unnecessary navigation to click on E then click on Ea-Eb. --Reflex Reaction 15:20, 28 October 2005 (UTC)


[edit] External links

  • [ Find-A-Grave profile for {{{PAGENAME}}}]

I did not find this format to work. Both on Preview and after saving the page the PAGENAME remained instead of the article title replacing it. Doc 02:48, 29 October 2005 (UTC)

So from the changed directions are we to assume that there is no way to have the Name of Person placed automatically? Doc 02:42, 6 November 2005 (UTC)

[edit] Word of Warning

Hi. Just wanted to say that I did some W's and realized how careful we have to be about removing links here. It is very easy to get the wrong one--or as I said in one of the lists, the "wrong Wright." Danny 15:06, 5 November 2005 (UTC)


[edit] Method

I've become very interested in this project as I've written a number of "famous bios" on Find A Grave and posted both the Find A Grave and Find A Grave Forums pages here. I had already started posting a few of my "own" bios from FAG, as it is known in the Forums here when I found this project. These I only need to wikify, and at times update, as they are my own composition.

I feel that it is very important before a name is removed from this project to be sure that the link to the profile is on the page here as well. I have started to go through the names listed on my user page here, and be sure that they are all complete with the link.

My method is to pull up the page with the name on the project, then open both the wiki page and the FAG page from the links in the project on new browser pages. Then verify the match. Next I add the link for the FAG profile if it is not there. Next I look for any information in the FAG profile that is not already included on the wiki page particularly on the death and burial and add that information. After a preview and clicking to be sure that the link works then I save the page. Only then do I go and remove the name and change the numbers for the prune both beside the letter and in the running total string. Doc 18:45, 5 November 2005 (UTC)

any endorsements or warnings? If endorsed, this method should be incorporated in the project page. --P64 18:21, 28 August 2006 (UTC)
I use approximately the same method, except that I only worry about totals every hundred edits or so... note that sometimes the F-A-G bio adds very little information; in those cases, I sometimes drop linking to it. --Alvestrand 19:52, 28 August 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Copyright

The copyright statement was not clear to me. How can their text be taken? Basically, I'm trying to figure out how careful I'd have to be on creating a page with that text as a basis to avoid copyright violations. The line between using a source and paraphrasing and more than paraphrasing is thin... I thought it'd be useful to know. gren グレン 10:47, 13 November 2005 (UTC)

The facts, dates, events, etc. cannot be copyrighted. Just use the facts and put it in your own words and you'll be fine. For one thing, the general wiki style will reorganize most FAG bios. Just don't cut and paste the text.

Doc 12:04, 13 November 2005 (UTC)

[edit] Use of 'Famous'

I've never been a fan of this word on Wikipedia, I much prefer 'notable'. Most important individuals with articles on Wikipedia aren't famous. For example, most people couldn't name the first man in space, or the inventor of the jet engine, but could easily name the lead singer of a contemporary pop band. The latter therefore are famous, but obviosuly not as important. 'Famous' is also a very limited field, where as notable is longer lasting and broader. Grunners 22:17, 2 December 2005 (UTC)

[edit] Find-a-grave link spam

This material looks very like spam. On what objective basis is it being added? --Red King 00:22, 21 November 2005 (UTC)

I believe that Red King may be objecting to the work of RustySpear (talk · contribs), who has added links to findagrave.com to hundreds of existing biographical articles. I agree with Red King that this practice is questionable at best, since findagrave.com has prominent advertising and no significant content beyond the biographical summaries that we should have here. WP:EL states among other things that we do not wish to link to content that we would find suitable for inclusion here. Further, findagrave is not a citable source, rather it is at best a secondary source, and as such it is not suitable for use as a reference. I would like to propose that the links to findagrave.com be removed from all articles except those that were created based on findagrave.com content. The Uninvited Co., Inc. 16:34, 6 December 2005 (UTC)

I second this. Johnleemk | Talk 16:38, 6 December 2005 (UTC)

I disagree. At various times someone has added Find-a-Grave links to a few of the Illinois governor pages I have worked on. In some cases Find-a-Grave adds some biographical information to stubby articles and in all cases (so far) it includes photos of the grave marker that confirm otherwise unsourced birth, death and burial information contained in the article. Personally speaking, on the articles that I am most interested in, I would welcome links to Find-a-Grave entries if they exist. In my view, a photograph of a tombstone is much better evidence than the unsourced information from politicalgraveyard.com. Grave markers can be wrong on occasion, but a they are at least a very visible source. -- DS1953 16:53, 6 December 2005 (UTC)

At least some of the links don't lead to a page with a photograph of a tombstone, e.g. [1]. The Uninvited Co., Inc. 16:58, 6 December 2005 (UTC)
I think if the Find-a-Grave link doesn't add value, it should not be treated any more favorably than any other external link (i.e., delete it). However, I believe all the Find-a-Grave links I came across in my work contained photos (but the individuals were buried, not cremated as in your example). In any event, I would not want to blanket delete all the useful links simply because a few don't add information. That is throwing the baby out with the bath water, to use an old phrase. -- DS1953 17:07, 6 December 2005 (UTC)

I took a closer look at the findagrave.com site. The Copeland entry does appear weaker than some of the others. While the site has value, I still do not believe that it is wise to add links to it from every biographical article for which there is a photograph of a tombstone at findagrave. I am unconvinced that a photo of a tombstone is inherently encyclopedic, because despite the fact that they are made of stone they are notoriously inaccurate both in regard to name and date, and offer little other useful information to the reader. Findagrave is not a free project (free as in free speech). They lack any editorial process and photos may well be spoofed or uploaded in error (for a person with the same name). And even if we really do want photos of tombstones for all and sundry, better that we go out and take them ourselves and release them under the GFDL.

Finally, I don't feel good about having so many links to a particular commercial site when there are other sites out there that have tombstone photos (rootsweb.com and genealogy.com for example). If we really do want to include links to tombstones on a wide variety of pages, I believe we would be better served with a solution similar to what we have done for book sources, so that we may provide a way to redirect to many sources.

The Uninvited Co., Inc. 17:53, 6 December 2005 (UTC)

I agree with most of what you say, but as someone with a long interest in both history and genealogy, I do find the tombstone photograph and burial information relevant and encyclopedic. If we have pictures released under the GFDL, by all means we should use them. If RootsWeb, USGenWeb or some other source has better pictures or better accompanying information, we should use that site. However, if Find-a-Grave has the information we need, I would not want to kill the good links just because we have a lot of links to that site. We have a lot of links to IMDB, too, and imdb.com appears far more commercial than findagrave.com.
On the other hand, perhaps we should ask that no editor make wholesale additions of the Find-a-Grave links to articles. The scope of that activity implies that judgment may not being made on an article-by-article basis. There may be articles where the information does not improve the article and, if so, it should be omitted. However, I still would hate to see wholesale deletions of the links that currently have been added by a variety of editors. -- DS1953 18:24, 6 December 2005 (UTC)
I would like to point out that the IMDB links have been controversial, though they are now fairly widely accepted. The important difference between IMDB and find-a-grave is that much of the IMDB content is inappropriate for Wikipedia. IMDB has discussion boards for each film, which is outside the remit of Wikipedia. It also has a degree of cross-referencing that is not possible for us to achieve.
So how do we go about getting them deleted? There are so many that it will need a robot! Is there an Admin in the house? --Red King 18:21, 6 December 2005 (UTC)
If the site has photos of gravestones or information about cremation, etc., I think it is relevant and of interest. The Louis Sockalexis one, for example, is particularly valuable for its interest to baseball historians. Badagnani 18:50, 6 December 2005 (UTC)
I see nothing wrong with citing Find-A-Grave as a source - sometimes you can find info there that you simply can't find elsewhere. I wouldn't include it if you have a lot of good sources, but I wouldn't exclude it otherwise. BD2412 T 19:44, 6 December 2005 (UTC)
  1. Find-A-Grave is a very useful source for biographical information, especially for determining dates for birth/death.
  2. Any genealogist knows about Find-a-grave and its usefulness.
  3. Their founder also provided us with their list of 46,000 famous persons to use as a "missing articles" list, so they're willing to cooperate with Wikipedia to expand our content. They demand nothing in return, but provide us with the option to link to their entry on each person, which usually contains valuable photographs that verify specific details.
  4. That people are profiting off our content as a result should be of no concern.
  5. Nearly all of our external links have ads that generate profit, including the primary mirrors of our content.
  6. Just because one editor has taken it upon himself to add external links to several pages doesn't automatically make it a bad thing.
  7. And in this case, especially, it is not a bad thing. Oftentimes, the photographs on Find-A-Grave are our only verifiable source for specific details on people. (this has been my experience on several occasions with Civil War generals in particular) — BRIAN0918 • 2005-12-7 00:04

Find-A-Grave is an excellent source for this information. At a very minimum, it needs to be cited when it has been consulted as a reference or confirmation for gravesite, or dates. - Nunh-huh 00:11, 7 December 2005 (UTC)

  • I have found that about 1 in 15 of the Find-A-Grave entries list dates contradicting ours. Sometimes this means Find-A-Grave is wrong, sometimes we're wrong, but usually they have photos of gravemarkers, clearing up any doubts. — BRIAN0918 • 2005-12-7 00:13
I agree with Nunh-huh and Brian -- these are generally valuable pages, especially for pages that don't yet have any other references. Of course each one should be evaluated for its own merits, and there are dozens I've worked on where I've omitted adding the link (I'm working my way through "T" on the missing articles list), but many more where I've found it valuable to include. They should NOT be removed wholesale, but judged individually. — Catherine\talk 00:53, 7 December 2005 (UTC)
  • I also agree with Nunh-huh, Brian and Catherine, but I really see no harm in the link on any page here. For one their pages too are improving all of the time and as with IMBD there are discussion elements on Find A Grave too, both through 'flowers' on the main pages and in the Find A Grave Forums. In fact I think that the "wholesale addition of the Find-a-Grave links" would be a good thing as an External link and put it under a Reference only if this has been a primary resource. As I stated above, I don't think that a name should be removed from the list here without such a link Doc 15:06, 7 December 2005 (UTC)
  • I agree with Brian, as well. I've spent a great deal of time pruning the Find-a-Grave lists and have found some discrepancies between the dates listed between the sites. However, in the long run, the more sources of information can't hurt. We certainly shouldn't be presenting our data as fact if it turns out to be wrong and the other site is correct. Hopefully, those individuals who are developing the Wikipedia article would research any discrepancies. Perhaps noting them on the talk page is too much trouble, but would provide notice that we are aware of the differences and this is why we think ours is correct. Just my US$.02.  :-) >: Roby Wayne Talk 00:29, 8 December 2005 (UTC)
  • I use Find-A-Grave frequently for my own uses outside of Wikipedia. I find links to it at several different web-sites(Findadeath.com, dpsinfo.com, etc etc), sites that feature biographies of notable people. dspinfo in particular is worth checking out. Since it is contributer driven, Find-a-grave can probably be counted upon as being as accurate as WP is, at any given moment. Hamster Sandwich 07:59, 8 December 2005 (UTC)

[edit] Confused

  • Sorry everybody it looks like I am confused about this project, so I have stopped contributing to this project (no more links!). One of the problems is the links. If it is wrong to add a link to an existing article, then it is wrong to add a link to a new article.

Can someone clarify this project?

  1. What is the nature of the agreement with Find-A-Grave? To create a new article a minimum of name, birth date, death date and reason for fame is required to properly identify the person ( Or a link to Find-a-Grave). Does wikapediea have permission to gather the name, birth, death and reason for fame. ? Are we required to a link?
    • There is no "agreement" with Find-A-Grave. I simply asked for the list, and the founder gave it to me. I've just made a suggestion to link to their site since it is usually informative. — BRIAN0918 • 2005-12-9 06:05
  2. Do links to "Find-A-Grave" constitute advertisement for this website? What about the article (Find_A_Grave), is this also an ad?
    • All external links are "advertisement" in some sense. We have templates for IMDB because, just like Find-A-Grave, it is very useful and often a source for article content. — BRIAN0918 • 2005-12-9 06:05
  3. So existing links to Find-a-Grave be deleted?
    • No, nothing is going to be deleted. — BRIAN0918 • 2005-12-9 06:05
  4. If links are allowed, do we add it to every article and let the reader decide if it is useful or nor OR do the article writes decide this?
    • It doesn't matter. Since most of their articles have pictures of the grave markers, they are almost always useful, in the same way that IMDB entries almost always have some useful content. So it is safe to assume that adding their link is useful to the reader. — BRIAN0918 • 2005-12-9 06:05
  5. Do we need a disclaimer for external links, "We are not responsible for the accuracy or usefulness of this or nay other external links, inappropriate link should be reported or deleted"
    • I think it's pretty much understood that if an external link has nothing to do with the article, or is obviously for advertising purposes (eg: a link to an online store), it should be removed. Find-A-Grave doesn't fit either of those distinctions, so is fine. — BRIAN0918 • 2005-12-9 06:05

Just for the record, I have no connection to the Find-A-Grave website or any of its advertisers. RustySpear 23:06, 8 December 2005 (UTC)

Sorry to see you pull out. As I stated earlier on your talk page, I and many others think that you were doing a good thing. I don't believe that you were confused at all. It is your critic that was confused in my opinion. Doc 05:48, 9 December 2005 (UTC)
Agreed. — BRIAN0918 • 2005-12-9 06:12
I believe this project needs to be better designed. The potential of adding about 10,000 links to 30,000 links Find-a-Grave should be reviewed by the WIkipedia community (the orginial list of names is 40,000).
I am concerned about the lack of a formal aggreement with Find-A-Grave over copywrite. For example for Victoria cross winners a note is added to each article "This page has been migrated from the Victoria Cross Reference with permission." What if the current owner of Find-a-Grave sells his website? Would any information copied from that site then have to be deleted from Wikipedia?
Note on Tombstone dates: "accuracy of the date depends on the knowledge of the informate and the skill of the stone cutter." p. 234, "The Complete Idiot's Guide to Genealogy, Christene Rose, Kay Germain Ingalls, Alpha Books, 1997 RustySpear 15:30, 10 December 2005 (UTC)
First, I agree that this recent situation IMO is unfortunate only in the way that it was handled. Second, as long as the information is not 'cut and paste' no one 'owns' the data, dates, facts, etc. That is all public record so it doesn't matter in the least who 'owns' Find A Grave. Third, as that data base too changes all of the time, hopefully improving as others contribute, it is an invaluable reference and I believe that the links on Wikipedia pages become even more useful over time. One would hope that anyone hope that anyone wishing definitive information on an individual here would check all references and in the interest of the community here add useful added information for the more casual researcher.
So, in short, it may take some time, but I think that both creating the necessary new pages here and having the Find A Grave link on every page which is also at that site is a wonderful project to continue. Doc 16:05, 10 December 2005 (UTC)

[edit] Percent completed

I have recalculated the percent completed - it never was 3.96 percent. It's probably significantly higher than 3.14%, but one has to count unpruned blue links - a vague guesstimate isn't very useful. Zafiroblue05 23:41, 13 January 2006 (UTC)

[edit] The missing instructions?

I have trouble interpreting anything on the project page as clear instructions on how to help here.... I think that the instructions are as follows:

  1. Find a name in the list here
  2. Find the corresponding wikipedia article
  3. If not found, write the article
  4. Link the find-a-grave pointer into the article, if appropriate
  5. Delete the name from the list here

But there's nothing on the page that says so. And I don't dare to delete an entry before having it confirmed. Is my interpretation correct? --Alvestrand 06:56, 26 January 2006 (UTC)

  • Exactly correct. This is a subproject of WP:MEA. All the instructions are there. — 0918BRIAN • 2006-01-26 07:29
If crucial instructions will not be repeated here, the first paragraph should ask people to read WP:MEA instructions. There may be a similar problem for all WP:MEA subprojects. "What links here" naturally sends editors (who use it after moving or redirecting, for example) to somewhere down in the subproject pages. --P64 17:37, 28 August 2006 (UTC)
Of course it's at the lowest level, where "what links here" sends us, that a reference to WP:MEA (instructions in particular?) would be most valuable. --P64 18:24, 28 August 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Reorg?

Would anyone mind if I did a reorg of the page to something akin to the Hotlist? I don't do much work with the project so I'm find to leave it be, but I find it very annoying to click through multiple navigation pages to get to the actual links. --Reflex Reaction (talk)• 18:19, 9 February 2006 (UTC)

My biggest irritation is that moving the links around takes editing points in the file 200K apart - ideally, I'd like to just put a marker next to the link and have a robot move them to the appropriate category. The Hotlist schematic doesn't seem that much better to me. --Alvestrand 20:08, 9 February 2006 (UTC)
A reorg doesn't really seem that necessary. It's somewhat annoying, but it doesn't seem like there's a great way to handle this many names. --Mathwizard1232 23:07, 22 February 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Jim Tipton

Is there a way to let Jim Tipton/Find-a-Grave know about corrections? Does he want feedback on minor corrections? (e.g., Find-a-Grave lists "Henry Prince of Battenburg" but "Battenberg" should properly be spelled with an e, not a u, in "Battenberg".) - Nunh-huh 04:45, 10 March 2006 (UTC)

I've seen a few of these misspellings, and even some years that don't match the marker at all. It can be very sloppy, and I was wishing for an edit this page tab. — Laura Scudder ☎ 04:53, 13 March 2006 (UTC)
When working on a list, I wait until I've accumulated a list of a dozen or more corrections (with URLs), then send them all at once, (to info at findagrave dot com). They seem grateful for the corrections, though since I've sent them multiple emails I now often get only a one-line "thanks!" reply. Be careful with reports of duplicate entries -- this is sometimes intentional when there's more than one "burial site"/marker/memorial/etc. — Catherine\talk 01:00, 14 March 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Status update

I went through and updated the various counts, and then the statistics on the main page. Let me know if there are any comments. Ardric47 03:55, 27 March 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Definition of "done"?

I am wondering about the definition of "done" in this context.... on the T page, I have 1609 articles on the page, but only 980 of them are missing or not located - the rest are verified to be the same as their Wikipedia articles, but I've not verified whether or not there's a link to the F-A-G bio on the page. But if the 980 artciles are created, I'd consider it quite reasonable to consider the T space "done".

So what should the right "left to do" percentage on T be? 980/1705 or 1609/1705? --Alvestrand 06:16, 11 June 2006 (UTC)

I think it'd be nice to have the F-A-G bio linked (particularly for less notable people). I was doing the J page a little while ago, and I always added in the F-A-G link when I ascertained that the Wiki page matched the Find a Grave bio. But if you've already verified over 600 articles, I don't think it's necessary to go back and add the bios individually. zafiroblue05 | Talk 21:26, 11 June 2006 (UTC)
OK, I'll take the number of clearly missing articles as the number "left to do" - I'm now down to 969... --Alvestrand 20:46, 14 June 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Subdivisions of "possible non-notable"?

In my slow walk through the T's, I've noticed a couple of classes of people who are thought notable by F-A-G, but don't seem to have all that many articles on Wikipedia. I've tried to make a grouping inside "possibly non-notable" for them, but haven't started moving people inside that category en masse yet. Comments on classification? Wisdom of approach?

See Wikipedia:Find-A-Grave famous people/T#Possibly non-notable for the example. --Alvestrand 10:18, 17 June 2006 (UTC)

The approach seems wise. And the execution lots of work. A vandal must have deleted earlier congratulations and thanks.
It's easy to understand why most of these are notable for amateur photographers and tour guides of local burying grounds, the f-a-g community.
Every Catholic Saint is notable here, I guess.
Many of the memorials pertain to an event, person, or group that should have an article here. So what is the question in those cases? Perhaps "Is the event otherwise flagged by WP:MEA?"
(answering mid-response..) In many cases, the event has an article. I've tried to link to it. But there was no good-looking way of referring to the memorial from the article in question. --Alvestrand 19:38, 28 August 2006 (UTC)
Hm-m. You can't just work into an article on a Neapolitan saint a photo of memorial statuary in a small cemetery in Massachusetts? :-)
More seriously - and a real example - how does a picture of a memorial from a random graveyard in the Netherlands add to the article on the Tenerife airplane collision disaster? Note also that Find-A-Grave doesn't give enough copyright data on the photos to import them into Wikipedia, so you can't even insert the photo - you have to insert "and btw, if, after reading about this air disaster, you want to look at a random graveyard in the Netherlands, here's the link". Great value? --Alvestrand 03:51, 29 August 2006 (UTC)
Regarding the classification: "Other reasons, or not classified" is stuffed with memorials that are not gravesites so I suggest that that should be a class, leaving many fewer miscellaneous. --P64 18:06, 28 August 2006 (UTC)
Makes sense.... --Alvestrand 19:38, 28 August 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Template Find A Grave

I went looking for a template for the find-a-grave references, and found one. Fixed it so that you don't have to specify the name of the page (but can if you want to).

Usage: {{Find A Grave|id=nnnn}}. Seems useful? --Alvestrand 19:38, 28 August 2006 (UTC)

[edit] vital dates

"about 1 in 15 of the Find-A-Grave entries list dates contradicting ours"
This project might do something specific and consistent regarding f-a-g vital dates, such as cover the discrepancy in Talk.

This may be a question for some biography project but here goes. When should articles note discrepancies in vital data and explain resolutions, when relegate that to Talk? Should a reference consulted and dismissed be listed as a reference in order to show that it has been consulted? (for example, f-a-g consulted and its vital data dismissed as incorrect) --P64 18:16, 28 August 2006 (UTC)

  • I would discuss and figure it out on the talk page, but only list the source under References if any of its contents are still used in the article. — BRIAN0918 • 2006-08-28 21:40Z
    • Thanks. On a related matter, should every biography be put into several categories such as "18xx births" and "19xx deaths"? I have considered those clutter, but reading here suggests that they help editors if not readers of the 'pedia! --P64 00:50, 29 August 2006 (UTC)
      • It should be done for every bio, and I do it whenever I remember to. More important are the categories describing the individual's occupation (what makes them important) and the categories for "Native of X" where X is a city/state/country. So you should try for a minimum of 3-4 categories for everybody in F-A-G (birth, death, occupation/importance, native of X). — BRIAN0918 • 2006-08-29 02:35Z

[edit] Some statistical experience from the Ls....

I've recently been through one subpage of the letter L, and have formed some opinions....

  • First, I went for the blue links. For those that matched, I deleted them (after listing F-A-G under extlinks if it made sense), and for those that didn't, I added qualifiers to the link so that it turned red. This removed approximately 50% of the entries.
  • Second, I added {{search}} to each name, and used the "gwp" link (use Google to search on Wikipedia) to find out if the person was listed under another name. I also added an one-line description to each entry, to aid in the next step. This eliminated perhaps 20% of the remainder.
  • Last, I moved all the medal recipients, murder victims and other items that I thought were non-notable to the "non-notable" session. This eliminated perhaps 40% of the remainder.

In total, these 3 steps seem to be enough to get a page to around 75% complete, without a single new article being created. That's a lot of progress towards project completion! --Alvestrand (talk) 11:13, 30 December 2007 (UTC)

I've been working backwards through the alphabet and had similar results (although I'm only doing the first step so far). I'm currently working on the R's. It is slow going, but major progress has been made on this project in the last few months! jwillbur 18:02, 2 January 2008 (UTC)
Superb!
One note: When I get a "mismatch", I usually modify the name on the project page until it turns red. Sometimes (as when inserting a middle initial), it remains blue, and it turns out the new name is a correct match. This means that I don't have to use a "mismatched" section. --Alvestrand (talk) 21:31, 2 January 2008 (UTC)
Yes, I've started doing that for the R's after seeing the mismatched section for the S's get very large. I will eventually go back and do the same for the mismatches in S-Z. jwillbur 22:57, 2 January 2008 (UTC)

[edit] Personal techniques and notes page

I've started keeping some notes on the way I attack F-A-G entries at User:Alvestrand/Find-A-Grave. I think everyone should do his own thing, but someone might find the notes useful. Having fun seeing progress! --Alvestrand (talk) 06:47, 8 January 2008 (UTC)

[edit] A toast to the 1/3 point!

Champagne is often consumed as part of a celebration
Champagne is often consumed as part of a celebration

I just want to share a toast with the contributors that have made this project pass the 1/3 completed point (as of January 4, 2008).

Great to see this project move! --Alvestrand (talk) 07:40, 17 January 2008 (UTC)

Cheers! Congratulations everybody. jwillbur 19:51, 17 January 2008 (UTC)

[edit] And today we're halfway!

50%: Worthy of some festivities!
50%: Worthy of some festivities!

And now we're at the halfway point - 50% was passed today! --Alvestrand (talk) 20:55, 23 April 2008 (UTC)

Yay 50%! It took two years to get up to 20%, and we've gone from there to 50% in less than five months. Awesome. jwillbur 23:44, 23 April 2008 (UTC)
Excellent work! This project has really taken off. — BRIAN0918 • 2008-04-24 12:59Z